Concerns Rise Over China's Detention of Uighur Scholar
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Concerns about the prolonged detention in China of prominent Uighur academic Ilham Tohti are rising amid a crackdown by Beijing on Islamist separatists it says are seeking to establish an independent state in the far west. Tohti's lawyer said on Tuesday that sources have told him that the Minzu University economics professor, who was detained in January and later charged with separatism, may have been secretly tried and given a heavy jail sentence. Li Fangping said police wouldn't say whether a secret trial had taken place. Calls by Reuters to police in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang region, went unanswered.
"Someone finally picked up the phone at the Urumqi public security bureau late yesterday," Li said. "They didn't confirm or deny that a trial had taken place."
Tohti's case underscores the government's crackdown on dissent in Xinjiang, which has been plagued by a series of attacks in public places. Xinjiang is the traditional home of the Uighur ethnic minority group.
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